Places of Encountering in the Context of Chronotope Concept in the Novel Ölüm Hükmü

Abstract

Ölüm Hükmü [Death Sentence] written by Elçin Efendiyev, one of the important writers of contemporary Azerbaijani literature, is a remarkable work in terms of the intensity of temporal overlaps that emerged through the encountering spaces. Evident time-spaces that allow different characters to meet together build the formal structure of the novel on the junction points, construct the plot based on the moments of encountering of the characters. In addition, it makes it possible to emphasize that all moments are a process in relation to one another and repeat themselves cyclically by transferring past lives of the characters to the actual life. There is a semantic integrity associated with human nature and historicity in an episodic, scattered text in which the narration is based on the alternance technique by alternating between past and present. Moments of encountering in the novel, in which there are abundant vertical transitions that make a dialectical relationship between the past, present and future visible, creates the multidirectional dialogue between different times that enable all scenes to meet on the same plane. In the novel the carnival atmosphere and polyphony by through characters, not organically connected to each other but coincidentally intersected at certain points are provided quite evident and are characterizable despite their tragedy which allow us to evaluate the different aspects of the Soviet period. Also, the diversity of characters' discourses and literary genres reinforces this situation. The aim of this article is to analyse the novel Ölüm Hükmü in terms of Mikhail Bakhtin's carnival theory, dialogy, polyphony, chronotope concepts; to demonstrate genre-specific features of Ölüm Hükmü depending on the historical context (considering the time described in the novel and the time the novel was written) in association with its chronotopes; to contribute to Turkish literature within the framework of genre studies in which Bakhtin made very important determinations.